Below are four stories of people who joined the Catholic Church as adults who I think many people probably don't know about (at least I was surprised to learn about their stories!). One was a convicted homosexual playwright who converted on his death-bed, another was an ex-Marxist who authored the "eco-Bible", the third was a drafter of the U.N's Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the last one was the founder of a whole new academic discipline.Death-bed conversion of a homosexual playwright:Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
A contributor to the aestheticism movement and best known for his play The Importance of Being Earnest, Wilde is also a well-known example of a famous person convicted under laws in the 19th century that punished homosexual acts. What is not as well-known, however, is that he joined the Catholic Church literally on his death-bed. Though born into an Anglican family, his interest in the Church started as a young man. A meeting with Pope Pius IX left a big impact on him, and he read the writings the Cardinal Newman, another great convert to the faith. At the age of twenty four, he actually was set join the Catholic Church, but decided against it at the last minute.

A quarter of a century later, after serving his prison sentence, he unsuccessfully tried to go on a six-month Jesuit retreat. He later developed cerebral meningitis. With his health deteriorating, a friend called for a priest. The priest conditionally baptized him (Wilde had a vague memory of being baptized as a child) and gave him Last Rites. He died the next day.

E. F. Schumacher

The liberal environmentalist nobody knew was Catholic: E. F. Schumacher(1911-1977)
Schumacher was a protégé of John Maynard Keynes as a young man and had an accomplished career as an economist. For much of his adult life, he was an avowed Marxist atheist. But a visit to Burma in the early 1950s and seeing how Buddhism shaped the economic life of the country got him to start rethinking his atheism. Upon returning to England, he decided to look into the Christian tradition and read the writings of St Thomas Aquinas, St Teresa of Avila, and St John of the Cross, and the lives of other saints. He also read modern Catholic thinkers Rene Guenon, Etienne Gilson, G. K. Chesterton (another convert), and Jacques Maritain (another convert, see below). A friend eventually persuaded him to read the papal social teaching encyclicals. A friend of his relates how he responded:

He replied, 'No, no, I'm sure that the Popes are very holy men living in their ivory tower in the Vatican but they don't know a thing about the conduct of practical affairs... But this friend... insisted that he should read the social encyclicals, Rerum Novarum and Quadragesimo Anno above all... He did so and was absolutely staggered. He said, 'here were these celibates living in an ivory tower... why can they talk a great deal of sense when everyone else talks nonsense'... (source)

Pope Paul VI's encyclical reaffirming the Church's stance against the use of contraception Humanae Vitae came out as he was getting closer to wanting to join the Church. Though many criticized the teaching, Schumacher was in full support: "If the Pope had written anything else, I would have lost all faith in the papacy." (source) For his wife and daughter, who had also been considering Catholicism, Humanae Vitae was the final assurance that the Catholic Church was the right place to be. After years of being intellectually convinced of Catholicism, he was eventually received into the Church.

Jacques Maritain

Two years later, he published the book Small is Beautiful: Economics as if people mattered. Touted by TIME magazine as the "eco-Bible", the best-seller simply explained in non-theological language the ideas of Catholic social teaching. When he died four years later a celebrity among liberal environmentalists, most still didn't know he was Catholic. His daughter has related that, as word got out, many were "astounded" and "thought it was a real let-down, a betrayal." (Read more about his conversion here.)

The suicidal scientist who found hope in the Church and went on to help draft the U.N.'s Universal Declaration of Human Rights:Jacques Maritain (1882-1973)

As a young man, he went to the University of Paris to study the natural sciences. There, he met his future wife, Raïssa, a Russian Jewish immigrant. Before marrying, however, he and Raïssa became convinced that scientism could not answer existential questions about life. In 1901, in light of this disillusionment, they made a pact to commit suicide together if they could not discover some deeper meaning to life within a year. Fortunately, a friend recommended they attend the lectures of Henri Bergson. Bergson's critique of scientism convinced them of the reality of objective absolutes. Through the influence of Léon Bloy, they converted to the Roman Catholic faith in 1906. Maritain became an famous Catholic philosopher, who's natural law arguments were influential in his participation in the drafting of the U.N.'s Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

He was a daily Mass goer, and apparently claimed that the Blessed Virgin Mary somehow provided him direct intellectual guidance. A collection of his writings on religion has been posthumously published as The Medium and the Light (fascinating read), in which he argues, among other things, that the microphone is what killed the Latin Mass. Apparently, many in the field still don't know that he was Catholic and aren't aware of his writings on religion. A friend of mine presented a paper on McLuhan's religious beliefs at a conference recently and told me that the first thing the moderator said following his presentation was: "...I knew he was religious...but I...didn't know it was that bad."

16 comments:

"The Virgin Mary told him the Medium is the Message." I've never heard this very specific claim about my fellow Canadian though I read a number of books by and about him. Would be interesting to have the source on that.

Always loved his work and long before I was Catholic. Interesting just how many Catholics I was reading and in many cased not knowing they were Catholic or not fully understanding the impact the Catholic faith played on their work. In a way I was always meant to be Catholic and happily now I am.

I understand John Wayne became a Catholic late in life, if not on his deathbead (I cannot remember the story). I believe his third wife was Mexican, and a devout Catholic. Their grandson is a priest today.

Thank you for making this 'compendium'. I guess you may want to add those converts who have told their stories on the air at EWTN with Grodi's 'The Journey Home'. As a cradle Catholic, stories like this only inspire me, and make me give thanks to CHRiST endlessly for callimg me early on in life.

By the way, you might not notice it but the triangle above your head (which is part of the house in the background) tells something of the Catholic Marriage: it is the only love triangle that works: God, wife, and man.

I had been a Los Angeles Police Officer in the 1970's and often had the privilege of working the USC football games at the LA Coliseum. My assignment often included monitoring the celebrity parking area just outside the Coliseum. A tall, grandfatherly type individual could often be seen hugging the local children who came from poor, stuggling families. The man also made himself available to anyone who wished to talk, shake his hand, or pose in a photograph with him.

The Church appears to be under persecution again in America as it has been in so many places in the world. For many of us that believe we are aware of very real threats to the Church in America and indeed to the America which was founded on Judeo Christian religion and the philosphies fromo Greec.

Your article about the converts to the Way the Truth and The Life are heart-warnubg in the current sea of darkness.

Welcome home Brantly and Krista and your children. As a cradle, I didn't think I would be spending Friday evening reading your blog. I am always inspired by our saints and converts. There is absolutely nothing that compares in our secular world to that of the Holy Trinity and the Seven Sacraments established by Jesus Christ. Sweet! Interesting enough, E.F. Shumacher made a similar comment that was made by a writer in Rome during the persecution of Christians and before the fall of Rome, that among many things, the destruction of human life causes the downfall of a society.)

glencoeNovember 17, 2012 8:25 AMA neighbour of ours living in Wellesley,MA was a patient at the Massachusettes General Hospital at the same time John Wayne was being treated for his heart and cancer and was in the adjoining room. Our neighbour's bed had been wheeled out onto the common balcony and when Wayne was to be wheeled out he spotted the staff bringing the other bed in. He quickly told them to leave the other guy's bed there and they soon became good friends and got together each day for long chats. Wayne told him to come out and visit him anytime he wanted and not to worry about anything as he would be his guest. Unfortunately both died before they ever got together again.John Wayne really was a "big guy" in many ways.

If you want to read and find more about your favorite catholic celebrities the list at Ranker is a great one to start with. I wasn’t even aware of the fact that so many celebrities around us are catholic.